The family of Raymond Erlenbach, a longtime resident of the Laurels of Heath in central Ohio, has filed a lawsuit alleging that staff turnover and negligence kept the nursing home from following his care plans, and that an untreated urinary tract infection and respiratory failure contributed to his death in 2025. A second central Ohio family, whose grandfather died of C. diff at a sister facility run by the same company, won a $5 million wrongful death verdict in 2022. Both families spoke with 10 Investigates.
A care plan is only as good as the people carrying it out. Nursing homes are required to develop individualized plans for residents’ known risks, but when aides and nurses turn over constantly, the knowledge of who needs extra fluids, who needs closer monitoring, and who is quietly declining leaves with them. Families often describe the same thing the Erlenbach brothers did: promises from one staff member, and a new face the next time they visit.
Urinary tract infections are among the most common and most preventable infections in nursing homes, and in older adults they often do not look like infections at all. Confusion, fatigue, or simply “not feeling well” may be the only early signs. When those signs are missed, a treatable infection can progress to sepsis, respiratory failure, and delirium — the chain of events this family alleges.
The C. diff case follows a similar outline: a family noticing something wrong, raising it, and being reassured until the resident was rushed to a hospital.
When a resident says “I don’t feel well,” that sentence belongs in the chart, and it should trigger an assessment — vital signs, a look at intake and output, and a call to the physician if anything is off. In lawsuits like this one, the question is often not whether the infection was preventable in the abstract, but what staff did in the 24 hours after the resident or family first raised a concern.
Families have more power here than they often realize. If something seems wrong — an odor, a change in urine, new confusion, a loved one who is simply not themselves — ask for an assessment, write down who you told and when, and ask what the care plan says should happen next. Reassurance is not the same as an evaluation.
If your loved one suffered a serious infection, injury, or death in a nursing home after concerns were raised and dismissed, Bedsore.Law can help. Call 844-407-6737 or visit bedsore.law/contact for a free, confidential consultation.
